Cheap Eats: Water Side Wine Bar serves throwback menu

"Only in Phelps, NY: A wine bar with a big, fat TV for sports, free pretzels, a guy singing Led Zeppelin covers, and a sign that reads Wine: How Classy People Get Wasted."

Make all the crass remarks you want (I did — that was my Facebook post from a few months back). But if you are looking for a sampler menu of predominantly but not exclusively Finger Lakes wines that go for only $6 a glass, then the Water Side Wine Bar could become a destination watering hole for anyone passing through the village, once touted as the sauerkraut capital of the world.

Situated in a handsomely refurbished mill with a beamed ceiling, fireplace and church pew seating next to the picturesque Flint Creek, Water Side is more likely to get a spread in Country Living magazine than Wine Spectator (though some sections are downright groovy).

Yet the place belies a totally admirable pedigree of wine smarts (bartender Dave Smolinski is a longtime home winemaker who went professional after his Kodak retirement); beer democracy (from local and not-so-local craft beers to mass market brands costing $3 a bottle or $4 for a draft); and bar food brio.

Let's hit on that last point a little bit, the food. For the time being anyway, the only wings that fly here are the pig wings, or shanks. Buffalo chickens, you have the wrong Thruway stop. The throwback menu is mostly shared plates that could be invited to a New Orleans cocktail party or Italian supper club: crab cakes, a smoked rack of ribs, clams casino, grilled Caesar salad. Most dishes are less than $10, and are plated as if they cost twice as much.

For example, two generously crabby crab cakes ($10) on a white porcelain platter included an iceberg wedge with Thousand Island dressing, bacon, blue cheese and red pepper. Half a dozen coconut-coated fried shrimp with a sweet and sour sauce ($5) was also a head turner.

As with everything, there is a Rochester connection. The menu's mastermind is Derrick DePorter, executive chef at The Revelry. If DePorter is responsible for bringing upscale Southern food to Rochester, his dad and Water Street Wine Bar owner, Al, is the guy who finally put Phelps on the wine bar map. Al DePorter also bartends a couple of days a week.

Thursdays are the slow nights, so Smolinski took us into the large, expansive front room for a dreamy view of the eerily illuminated frozen waterfalls. Once a month, a wine club known as The Wine Club gathers in this room for a semi-private tasting, though classy stragglers are sometimes invited in to have a glass. So too are the owners, who sometimes add the standouts to their ever-changing wine list.

I'm wondering if Water Side should hang a new sign: Phelps: Where classy wines get tasted.